growing san pedro need help

[BloodShotEyes]

Hi,

i attached a picture of a couple of plants i planted today. They were laying in a box for a while and got exposed to some very minor light due to my own neglegence. So the tops look a little weird and crooked. Can someone suggest me the best way to go about it?

I don't want them to grow crooked so i was thinking maybe cutting the top off or just keep the side of the bend exposed to light?

They are mature plants and one of them even still has one bud left. So i really want them to come through.

Thanks in advance

 

[Eden]

Those are some funny looking cacti. I've never dealt with a 90 degree bend before, but all other bends normally fix themselves. Cutting the top off would achieve the same thing as simply letting them grow, but with added scabbing time and the possibility of infection.

For the sake of the cacti, let them get acclimated to their new environment and see what they do.

 

[goqql]

May well be your cacti have a magnesium deficiency. Try normal cacti fertilizer.
Also, they really look as if they didn't get too much light. Put them in a sunny place.

 

[ThirdEyeVision]

If you put them in filtered light for a month then full light they will be fine. It will start growing vertical but the crook will always be there though. You could cut below the crook and it will be fine, just cut at a slant right above the aureole. Then you can plant the tip and you will have twice the cacti!

EDIT: The back one I would keep the way it is. The front one I would cut and root tip.

 

[BloodShotEyes]

Hey, thanks guys for the feedback. Very much appreciated. For now, i prob will just wait until they settle in the new pots, like was suggested. Then start figureing out exactly what i want to do with them.

I'm probably not going to touch the back one. And then just cut and root the tip of the other one, after it grows out some more hopefully. Good idea. Thanks again

 

[ThirdEyeVision]

You could wait but it will slow down the growth in the long haul. Cutting the tip won't slow down the rooting of the base either.

What I would do:
Cut 2.5 -3.0 inches off the top now.
Let tip dry outside under filtered light for two weeks.
After the top is calloused over burry tip in soil mix leaving only about an inch sticking out, straight up.

Why I think waiting is a bad move:
You are delayng the inevitable and loosing valuable growing season. I don't see a benefit to waiting.

So that is my .02 but I do have a lot of experiance growing cacti from cuttings. I have about 100 cuttings from this year alone. I've grown cuttings as small as an inch and it did fine.

 

[BloodShotEyes]

You bring up another valid point, ThirdEyeVision. I think i will do just that.

I was also thinking about taking that cactus mix that is in the pots and mixing it up 50/50 with perlite to get better draingage.

Btw, the white tips are starting to gain some color. I'm going to see how this goes, but i would love getting deeper into growing these wonderful plants.

 

[stux]

I think it's just light deficiency which is causing the white colouration. Were they laid down on their sides in the box?? It looks like they've started to grow sideways because there was a small amount of light coming through the top of the box.

If you do slice the tops off, leave it next to a fan for a day or two and apply some powdered sulphur to the exposed flesh to reduce the chance of getting infected and rotting.

 

[dg]

May well be your cacti have a magnesium deficiency. Try normal cacti fertilizer.
Also, they really look as if they didn't get too much light. Put them in a sunny place.

yikes no!
they will fry if you put them in the sun being so eloiated!
slowly add sun to thier lives until they are green before giving them full sun.

no need to cut, they'll straighten out eventually, cuts of small unrooted cacti should be avoided